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February 26, 2008
Sardinia, Sardigna
I've seen a number of folks ask "if Kosovo, why not North Ossetia" and the like. Well, why not Sardigna? I saw this very fresh (the paint was still glossy) graffiti on Saturday morning - Sardigna no est Itaglia. Note that the Italian for this would be Sardegna non รจ Italia - the graffitisti is writing in Sardu, I suspect. Later that day I saw a flyer for a film-and- discussion of the mainland oppression of Sardinia in the 19th Century. I guess up in Pisa on the Tyrrhenian Sea (one of the local papers is Il Tirreno) there's enough of a Sardinian population to make this kind of issue vivid. But really, once one starts questioning the lines of nation states, what claim does Italy have to Sardinia?
Handy find, given the topic of our team-taught course: Inventing Rome, Inventing Romans. We read an article called 'Imagined Italies" for today on the construction of Italy as a nation through media - this was an excellent way to begin.
Further: Wikipedia's article about Sardu is quite interesting - especially on the state of Sardinian in the Kingdom of Sardinia - you did remember that controlling Sardinia was the way the House of Savoy got to call themselves Kings of something?
Posted by CrankyProfessor at February 26, 2008 6:14 PM